volumes, very well selected, and the number of volumes taken out during the last year was 20,804. This library, curiously enough, is supported by a tax on dogs, which produces a hundred pounds a year. Music and art are cultivated in the town, which boasts of several very fair painters and musicians. Public lectures are common, and there are several literary societies. In the olden times it was a very rare thing for any one to leave the town except on business, but now there is almost a mania for travel. Almost half the families in the village go to some watering-place in the summer, and a number have cottages on one of the islands off the coast, where is to be seen a new variety of American social life, which is worthy of a study by itself. The home life of a New Englander is ordinarily as private and exclusive as that of an Englishman, but here everything is reversed. Every door is open, and life is made as public as possible. For amusements they have an endless round-religious meetings, conventions, lectures, and concerts, with seabathing and fishing. Some ten thousand persons congregate at this unique watering-place every summer. Martha's Vineyard, as the island is called, is far better worth a visit than aristocratic Newport. I know of no place like it in the world. This summer life, and the more extended travel, which is very common, is no doubt a species of educa tion which was unknown fifty years ago, and has a certain value along with some disadvantages.

But the great pride of the village is its public schools, on which the town expends a thousand pounds a year, in addition to another thousand on the seventeen schools in other parts of the township. The village schools are six, with eleven teachers and about 500 scholars. They are called the Primary, Higher Primary, Lower Intermediate, Intermediate, Grammar, and High Schools. Two of the teachers are men, with salaries of £17 and £24 a month. The others are women, with salaries of from £6 to £10 a month. There are sixty scholars in the High School, which has a four years' course, and in which instruction is given in Greek, Latiu, French, Mathematics as far as surveying, Physiology, Natural History, Physical Geography, English Literature, History, Geology, Chemistry, Physics, Botany, and Civil Government. All the schools are free, and scholars living at a distance are brought to school at the expense of the town. They usually enter the High School at the age of fourteen. The buildings for the village schools are commodious, but less expensive than those in many other towns. The material arrangements are good, and the discipline is strict; but it may be questioned whether there is much real improvement over the old districtschools of fifty years ago. There is more display and more expense, but a well-known American writer has lately condemned the public schools of this State as utterly impracticable and unscientific, as a cross between a cotton factory and a model prison. This is an extreme view, but it is true that they are unpractical, superficial, and, to some extent at least, adapted to discourage the taste for honest labour, and to develop self

conceit rather than solid learning. There are many who question very seriously the propriety of giving a High-School education at the expense of the State, who fear that we are raising up a class of demagogues too proud to work, too ignorant to earn their living in the learned professions, and accustomed to look to the State for aid, who will make the most dangerous and unscrupulous of politicians. The State should furnish to all a plain practical education, scientifically adapted to make better farmers, mechanics, and merchants, and leave all higher education to be paid for by those who can appreciate it. The history of America, especially of our public men, shows that poverty is no hindrance to genius, that free secondary education is not necessary to stimulate those who are qualified to appreciate it. Such views are not popular now, because there is a vague belief among the people that free education is a natural right, and universal education a panacea for all the evils in the land. Common sense will no doubt prevail in the end, but blind sentiment rules at present, even in New England. We are not yet prepared to offer our free-school system to England as a model for her to follow. We have still too much to learn ourselves.

The superficial nature of our education is seen in many things, which prove that even New England villages have not yet attained any Utopian perfection. They are much nearer perfection than our cities, however. There is no fraud or corruption in the administration, but there is a great deal of extravagance and stupidity in many cases. Within twenty years the taxes have been doubled without any corresponding advantages, and in some towns tripled. In the town of which I am writing £1,700 was expended on roads, and this is about the usual annual expenditure; but there is not a properly built road in the town. On this subject the authorities have only two ideas-the roads must be broad and straight; there is also a general impression that there cannot be too many roads. After leaving the village, the town is a labyrinth of roads, cut in all directions through the wild woods, wide enough for a city, but often not used once a day. But there is not a rod of paved or macadamized road in the township. The bridges are as unsatisfactory as the roads.

Another illustration of a different kind will show another phase of the results of our educational system. I think it is an acknowledged fact that our judges, lawyers, and physicians, if not our clergy, as a whole, are not so thoroughly educated as they were a generation ago. In this village, for example, out of six doctors of medicine only one has had even a nominally complete education. I think the same thing is true of the majority of the lawyers. The people are not educated up to the point of appreciating the value of thorough education. There is no country in the civilized world where ignorant quacks and deliberate swindlers obtain the patronage from respectable people that they do in America. According to the theory, the legislat have steadily i

public men of the country ought to s the number of educated men brought

forward by the free-school system increased; but it is a generally acknowledged fact that our legislative assemblies and politicians have rather deteriorated. There seems to be something wrong in the system, which not only brings forward inferior men, but also teaches the people to be satisfied with such men. There are, of course, thoroughly educated men, and great men, in high official positions. The Presidentelect, Mr. Garfield, is not only a statesman, but a scholar; but who are the men who are to represent New England in the next Congress? How do they compare with the great men of past generations? They are generally honest and respectable men, for which we are duly thankful; but very few of them have ever been thought of as men of superior ability, and the culture of Boston is represented by a German Jew who deals in ready-made clothing. This is no doubt an honourable calling, and there are worse and weaker men in Congress than he; but it is not the old style of New England statesmen.

In

This is a digression. To return to our New England village. While it is by no means perfect, it certainly comes nearer to an ideal village than anything I have seen in Europe. There is absolute civil and religious liberty. Even public opinion is not tyrannical there. dividual rights are respected, without any infringement upon the dignity and supremacy of the law. The people are moral and religious, without being uncharitable or fanatical. There are no social castes, not even such as a late writer in the Times declares must exist in all communities. The people are contented and happy. They are intelligent, acquainted with what goes on in the world, believe in progress, and contribute freely not only to support their own institutions, but for the enlightenment of the world. It is not strange that they believe in the form of government which secures all this to them, nor that they honour their English ancestors, whose wisdom and piety were the foundation of New England society.

A NON-RESIDENT AMERICAN.

WHAT IS THE HOUSE OF LORDS?

THE

HE recent rejection of the Irish Disturbance Bill sent up from the House of Commons to the House of Lords, has led to much discussion amongst advanced Liberals as to the constitutional rights of that Chamber. The policy of altering its legislative position in governing the people of England has been openly adopted. It is exceedingly possible that the movement may grow in warmth and magnitude. In many quarters the political world is becoming strongly bent on great constitutional innovations. The old principle of Reform -of repairing defects and meeting new wants on the lines of the old constitution-is thrust aside as inadequate for producing a right construction of society. Socialistic feeling now takes its stand on ideas, on doctrines, on principles derived, it is proclaimed, from science, and pronounced to be the natural and infallible rules for the government of mankind. Every existing institution is held to be of necessity subject to the searching glances of the regenerating thinker; every one which cannot give a satisfactory account of itself to the scientific theorist is at once sentenced to extinction. Thus, in Ireland the ownership of land by any other man than the cultivator is proclaimed to be a violation of the supreme law of Nature, and the suppression of landlords is decreed in the name of the people. In England Socialism and Democracy join hands, and meetings are summoned to abolish a House of Lords which has refused to obey the command of the people as expressed by the House of Commons.

Under such circumstances, it seems to be eminently desirable to examine the position which the House of Lords occupies in the British Constitution. hat, t the House of Lords? What are its

to determine the principles on which

such an inquiry ought to be conducted.

The legal right of the House

of Lords or of the House of Commons to reject any measure which is laid before them admits of no dispute. The law knows of no distinction between nominal and legal right in the three branches of the legislature. It imposes no restraint on the free action of any of the estates of the realm. If the Crown chose to veto every bill, or either of the two Houses to adjourn as soon as they met or to negative every motion, the law has furnished no remedy. There is no locking up the Lords or Commons till a statute has been passed. If they chose to risk the consequences, either House might bring the government in England to a standstill.

On the other hand, legislation by three co-ordinate estates would be impossible, unless they were blended in one harmonious and joint action by common rules and sentiments. Hence, the constitution by which England is practically governed is composed of usages as well as laws-usages which, though more fluctuating and less defined, are as real and as powerful as laws. These two forces are separated wide asunder by a fundamental distinction. Laws are recorded in statutes and textbooks. The authority which enacted them is known and indisputable. They are often altered, but they are altered by a determinate process, by defined and competent authorities, and upon a discussion avowedly directed to that end. It is quite otherwise with usages. They spring up imperceptibly: their origin is generally unknown; they have no binding force at first; at what period they become entitled to obedience can seldom be specified. They emanate, for the most part, from no recognized authority, and often from a source wholly exterior to the legislature. They are the creations of chance and custom, of force or acquiescence, of the ever-varying circumstances and feelings of each age. Like laws, they are subject to important changes; but unlike laws, they are modified by processes which are obscure, uncertain, and indeterminate. Every change in the social state of the nation, every development of a new political force, may create or abrogate an usage; it may produce a spirit of legislation, or a mode of administration, which will materially alter the character of the constitution.

Almost every part of the English machinery of government illustrates these facts. Let us take one or two instances out of many. Al great public measures, with few exceptions, now originate in the House of Commons. The few which still take their rise in the Lords generally owe their birthplace to a desire to save time. This is a vast change, and a vast increase of the power of the House of Commons. Yet it is not the result of design or encroachment. The Commons have passed no resolution claiming the monopoly of generation. It has not been built on any broad declaration of political doctrine. It is the fruit of spontaneous growth, the inevitable consequence of the historical circumstances of the day, of the press, of the character of the constituencies, of the multiplication of large towns, and of many other similar causes.